Second Chance Offers on eBay - Should You Use Them?

Second Chance Offers on eBayAs a seller or buyer, should you use "Second Chance" on eBay?We cannot answer the question for you, but we can make a few pointswhich may be helpful to members when deciding whether to use eBay's"Second Chance" feature.It is necessary to consider the matter from the point of view of both sellers and buyers.Please spare two seconds to click the YES link at the end of this pageif you find our guide interesting, useful, or informative. It make allour effort feel worthwhile, thanks.As a SellerThere are two circumstances where a seller may consider using the"Second Chance" feature. One is where the seller has multiple identicalitems, the other is where the highest bidder changed his mind, orfailed to pay. In this case, the second highest bidder may well havelost interest or decided he no longer wants the item. There are atleast four reasons for this to happen: He may have located another one elsewhere. He may have spent his money on something completely different. He may suspect that there is a problem with theitem, and the "winning" bidder has changed his mind because of this. He may be exhibiting signs of "FrustrationRejection". This is a well-known and very common psychologicalcondition, whereby if a person does not get what he wants when he wantsit, he decides he no longer wants it. Typically mostchildren exhibit this, and many, but not all, grow out of it. He may suspect that there is a potential "catch" or fraud.Our only real experience with "Second Offer", was following the firstfew items we ever listed on eBay. These were all for items where we hadsubstantial quantities of stock. In fact we hardly ever use eBay tosell items where we have only a single piece. A few of them sold forprices so high, they totally surprised us, being substantially higherthan our normal website list price. As it requires at least one"underbidder" to create a high price, except where there is a highstarting price and a single bid, we made a number of "Second Chance"offers. None of them were taken up, so we stopped doing it. There isalso a question of whether it is fair on the highest bidder for us tooffer to sell at lower prices to others, and also whether we are thenundermining our own future sales of the same item.Although the "Second Chance" feature sounds good in theory, we doubt if many reputable sellers actually make much use of it.As a BuyerIf, as a buyer, you are offered a "Second Chance" to buy an item, should you accept it?We suggest that you should resist the "Frustration Rejection" reaction, and think out whether you still want to buy the item.You may wish to consider, or ask the seller why he is offering it toyou. If the "winning" bidder has rejected it, you may wonder why. Ifthe seller has a quantity of the items, did he mention this in theoriginal listing? If no, then why not?One thing to be very careful of is that third parties may contact youoffering to sell you the same item, usually at a lower price, ratherthan the original seller. It seems that a common fraud or swindle is tofollow up auctions of high priced items, and contact the underbidders.In most cases, the third party vendor probably does not own any of theitems, and is simply trying to part you from your money. Although it ispossible that another bona fide member has watched the auction, seenthe item sell for a decent price, and decided to contact theunderbidders to try to sell his own item. eBay frown on this, butmainly because it tends to avoid them getting their commission fees. Ineither case, it pays to be careful. Our advice would be only to dealwith the original vendor.It is possible that there could be a number of people, or one person(the seller) with multiple eBay identities, conspiring with the sellerto run up the bidding on the item to the maximum, planning to offer itto the "underbidder". In this case, there may have only been one realbidder, you! If you have any suspicions that this is happening, youshould probably try to report it to eBay, but we doubt whether theywould take much action, unless they suspect that they are losing out onfees.So, for a number of reasons, many underbidders prefer not to take up "Second Chance" offersWho Gains?Apart from crooks, we guess that the party who gains most from "SecondChance" offers is eBay themselves as they get two or more lots ofselling commissions, and only have to host one auction!Author